When Feng Ling’s consciousness floated back from that brief blank, Ling Yue licked the blood from the corner of her mouth and said softly, “That was just the first one… There’s still a second and a third~”
With that, she bit down next to the previous hole.
This time, she didn’t suck the blood.
Instead, she pulled her fangs out and pressed her fingertip into the hole, sinking it in.
Then, the third bite landed on the small patch of flesh at the very end of her collarbone, closest to her shoulder.
After biting in, she simply closed her lips around the spot and sucked.
That made Feng Ling cry out… a sound completely on the verge of losing control, unable to distinguish up from down.
The bedsheet was crumpled into a ball under her grip.
The chains rattled in a flurry before pulling taut.
Tears mixed with the blood seeping from the wound above her forehead, streaming down together.
In her vision, Ling Yue was blurred by both water and red light.
“Sister Ling Yue… Ling Yue… wai-, wai-…”
Ling Yue flipped Feng Ling over again.
The ribbon wrapped another loop around her wrist, and her arms were crossed behind her back, tied tighter than before.
Feng Ling’s face was buried in the pillow.
Her back was completely exposed to the light, covered in scratches from the previous rounds that hadn’t fully healed yet… fresh wounds from the fang holes that were slowly oozing tomato sauce… and patches of skin, darkened noticeably from too many blood-sucking sessions, standing out against the rest.
“Now, it’s time for something new~”
Ling Yue said, brushing Feng Ling’s hair to one side.
She leaned down, speaking directly at the top of Feng Ling’s left shoulder blade.
“This might hurt… more than before.”
“What—?”
Before Feng Ling could finish, Ling Yue bit down.
She…
Sister Ling Yue actually took the thickest flesh from the top of that shoulder blade into her mouth, sank her fangs in, then bit down with her back molars, tearing the whole piece off Feng Ling’s left rear shoulder.
At the same time, the tearing pain was like a cannonball exploding directly on her back.
The shockwave traveled along her bones to her limbs and skull, blasting Feng Ling’s scream into a silent mouth shape.
Blood gushed from the gap and flowed down the curve of her back.
Ling Yue swallowed the piece, then licked the blood still welling from the wound.
“Little Fengling really is tender~”
She then bit a second time next to the wound… just two centimeters from the missing chunk.
This time, she used more force, and the piece she tore off was bigger.
Then the third bite landed on the corresponding spot on the right shoulder blade, perfectly symmetrical.
At that moment, Feng Ling was trembling all over.
“Does it hurt?”
Ling Yue flipped her over by the waist to face herself, pressing her index finger to Feng Ling’s lips.
“Of course it hurts!” Feng Ling shouted.
“But you still didn’t make me stop… Little Fengling.”
Ling Yue used her finger to tilt Feng Ling’s chin up, making her look at her.
“And you never really tried to break free from this ribbon or these chains.”
Her fingertip pressed on Feng Ling’s lips, just hard enough to turn the lower lip slightly outward.
“The ribbon can suppress your healing, but it can’t suppress your strength. If you wanted to break free right now, you could snap these chains. Sister didn’t seal your magic, nor did I choke your throat to keep you from speaking. If you had said ‘stop,’ I would have stopped immediately… but you didn’t. From start to finish, you never said ‘stop.’ So you like this, don’t you?”
Feng Ling stared at Ling Yue’s face, half-lit and half-shadowed by the red light.
Her expression was one of seriousness she had never seen before.
“It’s not that I like it… I’m afraid of you… I’m afraid that if I say stop, you’ll be even happier. I’m afraid you’ll speed up when I ask you to stop, so I didn’t dare say it.”
Feng Ling looked away and whispered.
“Half of that is true, half isn’t.” Ling Yue said softly.
“What makes you—”
“If you were just afraid of me, you wouldn’t have hugged my neck at the peak just now. Every time you shuddered, your legs clamped tighter. When I pulled my fingers out, you pulled me back into you. Is that fear?”
Feng Ling fell completely silent.
She didn’t know how to explain that instinct of the moment… she didn’t even understand it herself.
When the pain made her want to curl up into a ball, she instead pressed herself desperately against Ling Yue.
“Alright, no more for today.”
Then Ling Yue untied the ribbons from her limbs, picked up the blood-soaked Feng Ling, and carried her toward the bathroom.
“You did well on your first time in the wedding chamber… Next time, we’ll play the second level. For now, take a nice bath, and Sister will apply medicine for you. Even though the wounds will heal on their own once the restraint ribbon’s effect wears off, some deep ones still need treatment.”
Ling Yue’s tone returned to gentleness.
Feng Ling… she didn’t want to admit it.
Didn’t want to admit that just now, trapped between fear and pain, she had indeed felt something that shouldn’t have been in that kind of situation.
Not because she was brave, and not because she was used to being abused.
But because it was Ling Yue… as long as it was Ling Yue doing things to her—whether with nails or fangs or ribbons—at the end of every sensation, there was always a fleeting something she couldn’t quite put into words.
Like that day on the school rooftop, when she was expecting to be rejected, but the girl turned around in the sunset, smiled, and nodded to him.
…
That night, when Feng Ling was woken up, it was still pitch black outside the window.
Her shoulders and back still held a faint lingering pain… the ribbon’s effect had passed, and the vampire’s healing ability had mended the wounds of various depths by eighty or ninety percent.
“Thirsty?”
Ling Yue asked softly, holding a cup of dark red blood.
The bedside lamp hit her from the side… lighting up that half of her face, making it look three-dimensional and unfamiliar… it was the same face she saw every day, but whenever it was illuminated by bloodlight, it always seemed like a different person.
Feng Ling took the cup and downed it in one go.
The moment the blood flowed down her throat, the familiar satisfaction spread from her tongue to her limbs, temporarily freeing her from the lingering pain.
“More?” Ling Yue asked.
“Mm…”
She didn’t even realize she was nodding.
This time, Ling Yue extended her wrist to Feng Ling’s mouth and sliced a line across her palm with her nail.
Feng Ling leaned in, closed her lips over the wound, and sucked gently.
As always, Ling Yue’s blood made her lose control… that power richer than any human blood rushed from her tongue straight to her brain, scattering the last shred of clarity.
All she knew was that she was gripping Ling Yue’s arm tightly, sucking harder and harder.
She could feel Ling Yue’s blood burning down her throat, each inch setting her aflame.
It was like a charger plugged into the wall switching to fast charge… her body rapidly absorbed the magic in the blood and converted it into her own.
“Enough.”
Ling Yue pulled her wrist away and touched Feng Ling’s stomach.
“After drinking Sister’s blood… I feel like a switch inside me has been turned on.”
Feng Ling shrank back, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.
“What kind of switch?”
“That one… Why are you touching me again! Didn’t you say no more today?!”
Feng Ling glared at Ling Yue fiercely.
“I didn’t continue. Just a touch~”
Ling Yue withdrew her hand and stood up to leave.
Before leaving, she turned back to look at Feng Ling.
“Oh, what do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”
“…Anything you make is fine.”
“Then blood steamed eggs. Good night.”
The door closed.
Feng Ling lay alone in the dark, staring at the ceiling.
She touched the still-unhealed gap on her left shoulder blade.
It felt a little sunken…
Once it grows flat, will there be new ones? She didn’t know.
But she knew that Sister Ling Yue would do the same thing again tomorrow, maybe even worse… as long as she stayed here, Ling Yue wouldn’t stop.
And the truth was, she hadn’t said “no.”
Even when Ling Yue bit her flesh off alive, her strongest reaction was only screaming and crying… not a single “stop” from beginning to end.
She turned over, buried her face in the pillow, and wrapped the blanket around her head.
‘Forget it. Thinking about this is useless.’
‘Anyway, she’s never getting out of here… whether physically she’s not allowed to leave, or mentally she doesn’t want to, the result is the same.’
‘As long as she doesn’t let me die, anything is fine…’
‘Better think about what tomorrow’s blood steamed eggs will taste like.’